After Harvey Weinstein Scandal, Manhattan DA Pledges Campaign Cash Review

NEW YORK CITY — Embattled Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. has enlisted an outside watchdog group to review how his political campaign handles donations, the DA announced Sunday. In a New York Daily News op-ed, Vance said he has suspended all gifts to his campaign while the Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity examines its practices.

The 90-day examination is an effort to restore trust in the DA's office after a "firestorm" of recent criticism, Vance wrote. Vance has been under scrutiny following reports that his office dropped investigations of disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein and President Donald Trump's two eldest children around the time that he received political donations from their lawyers.

Vance did not say what specifically the Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity, an arm of Columbia University Law School, will be reviewing. But he said he is "prepared to dramatically restrict who can donate money to our campaign — including lawyers — and the amounts that our contributors are able to give."

"At the end of the day, I don’t expect people to agree with every call that we make," Vance wrote. "But I want them to have faith that we make those calls without fear or favor, based on the merits alone."

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Vance did not specify whether the Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity's review would be made public. Patch has reached out to the center for comment and will update this story if we hear back.

The scandals involving Weinstein, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. have created problems of perception for Vance, who until two weeks ago was coasting toward a third term as Manhattan's top prosecutor. He is officially unopposed for re-election, but failed Brooklyn DA candidate Marc Fliedner is now running a write-in campaign to oust him.

An investigation by The New Yorker, WNYC and ProPublica found that Vance decided not to charge the Trumps for misleading investors in a SoHo condo building after meeting with Marc Kasowitz, a Trump family attorney. Kasowitz gave Vance's campaign $25,000, which Vance returned, the report says.

After The New York Times revealed Weinstein's pattern of alleged sexual harassment and assault, the International Business Times found that Weinstein lawyer David Boies gave Vance's campaign $10,000 in 2015 after his office didn't arrest Weinstein for allegedly groping the Italian model Ambra Battilana. Weinstein admits to grabbing her breasts in a recording The New Yorker published last week.

Vance's office has denied any impropriety, saying both cases lacked enough evidence to bring criminal charges. Vance wrote Sunday that he has "never allowed someone’s wealth, power, race, or campaign contributions to influence my decisions."

"Over the past few days, I’ve learned that it's not enough for me to have confidence in my independence from donors," his op-ed says. "The people of New York deserve to be confident about it as well."

District attorney campaigns are subject only to the permissive campaign finance rules in state election law, which Vance called "lax." Nearly 48 percent of Vance's campaign cash since 2014 came from lawyers and law firms, POLITICO New York reported Monday.

State Assemblyman Dan Quart (D-Manhattan) proposed a bill that would bar criminal defense law firms from giving more than $320 to DA campaigns in any one election cycle, the Daily News reported Monday.

(Lead image by Branden Camp/Associated Press)